My Broken Scale

With apologies to Stevob for using his "My Broken.." title, I have found myself in a similar situation!!

I was just about to wash about 2 kilos of weekend mud off my 2009 Scale this evening when I found a crack!!!

The driveside chainstay is cracked about two thirds through with a crack on the top and bottom - which I assume will eventually join and SNAP! The crack is in the dropout area about 3 cms from the hanger.

Has anyone else heard of this happening with alu Scales? I noticed that the 2010 alu Scales have 6061 grade alu as opposed to 7005 grade in 2009 models.

Hopefully I have no dramas with warranty as the bike is only 10 months old!

I have cracked or broken my Scott Genius frame 3 times in 4 places. All times the section of frame was replaced under warranty - taking longer to do so as time went on due to availiability of similar coloured replacement parts (it's an 06 model). But in any case, dealt with well. If you consider 5 weeks well. Otherwise ... bad.

I rang the shop today as my bike has been in there for nearly two weeks and I have had no news about the warranty claim progress.

I am a little concerned now (and a bit annoyed) as I have learnt that Scott has a new Australian distributor and no one has looked at the frame yet as the shop had to work out what to do. Now it will be another week until I get any further info.

One of the guys also let slip that they have two other Scotts waiting to get looked at.

After 4 phone calls to the shop over the last three and a half weeks to find out what is going on with my bike, I called again this morning with an expectation that I would get an answer on approximately when I would get my bike back (or at some sort of idea what is actually going on!).

I was put on hold then given then given (another!!) promise of “I will call you back in a couple of hours.”

Over 10 hours later I still have had no phone call and I don’t really expect one on the weekend. This saga is now approaching 4 weeks!! My sixth phone call will definitely not be as friendly as the first five!!!

I never expected this thread to become a rant but it is heading that way! I wonder if the owners of the other Scotts are having the same issue?

Even if it's not your bikeshops fault, you would think they would at least call to say what was going on - even if the answer was "we don't know..". One of the basics of customer service IMO.
Its during times like this that it's good to own more than one bike...

I've been through what you're going through....

Originally Posted by jossa

I am now annoyed!!

After 4 phone calls to the shop over the last three and a half weeks to find out what is going on with my bike, I called again this morning with an expectation that I would get an answer on approximately when I would get my bike back (or at some sort of idea what is actually going on!).

I was put on hold then given then given (another!!) promise of “I will call you back in a couple of hours.”

Over 10 hours later I still have had no phone call and I don’t really expect one on the weekend. This saga is now approaching 4 weeks!! My sixth phone call will definitely not be as friendly as the first five!!!

I never expected this thread to become a rant but it is heading that way! I wonder if the owners of the other Scotts are having the same issue?

...four times over the past five years, and really the best thing to do is bypass the bike shop and deal directly with the distributers!

Bike shops employees have no interest in your warranty. To them, you are just taking up valuable sales time. Add to this that many of them are utter c&^ts with no education and you can expect a bit of delay to creep in.

Ring the phone numbers, politely ask to be put through to warrany dept, get to know their names and be super pleasant at all times.

Forward your digital pics of the fault, accompanied with pics of the serial number and scans of your proof-of-purchase and warranty card. Write a short email indicating that you would like confirmation of warranty approval and nominate a collection point for the new frame. Briefly assert that your LBS are doing a poor job of representing their product and that your brand loyalty has motivated you to take matters into your own hands.

Now, you will have to concede that many distributers are also utter pricks, but they are the ones that may be dictating terms, so you have to play nice.

You've got nothing to lose here. This is what I have had to do the last four times I broke an Italian carbon road frame. The distributers (bikesportz) just forwarded the pics on to Europe, then forwarded the confirmation directly on to me. The slowest part of the whole process is whenever the LBS is involved. Avoid them like the plague.

I am more annoyed with the attitude this bike shop has repeatedly displayed because all I have asked is "What is going on?". I have been in retail for a while and I understand that the manufacturer/distributor is responsible for the warranty. However, the fact that they have not returned my many phone calls and held my bike for nearly two weeks before they actually did anything with it is simply not good enough. If I found out that that my team was doing this, I would be embarrassed and would get personally involved!

I bought my bike from this shop because they had the best price by about $300. I now wish that I had spent this extra $300 and bought instead from one of my two local shops which are friendly and professional every time I go in. I was in one yesterday and explained my situation and was given much more time and advice and even a "call me if you don't have any luck and I will see what I can do".

I will be looking at buying a new dually in the next few months and it will be definately from one of these guys!!!

This sounds like a **** of a situation, and I hope you get a good resolution.

As a former LBS employee, I remember bucketloads of 'fun and games' trying to get a couple of Norco warranties sorted right about the time they moved from (the now defunct) Sportz Australasia to Pac Brands. It was an absolute nightmare - phone calls not getting returned, getting completely different stories on different phone calls, not wanting to commit to warranty responsibilities, and on, and on, and on. It's only because I'm a stubborn bastard and wouldn't let it go that I finally got these kicked over the line, but the time and sheer number of hours spent on the phone was ridiculous.

I can certainly see how a younger or newer person would have no freaking way of getting a resolution if they were faced with a similar situation.

I hope this isn't the situation with Scott/Avanti - please let us know how it goes.

Four weeks later and I have my bike back. Bittersweet is probably the best way to describe the situation. Here is my last rant in an attempt to “get over it!!”

Called store Monday morning and was told that the frame was on its way and would be swapped later that day. This time I did get a call back to say that the bike was ready. Headed over today to pick the bike up and sure enough the attitude of the staff still had not changed. Basically “Here’s your bike. See you later.” (Not likely!) Expecting at least “Is everything ok?” or “Sorry about the delay” and being a bit pissed off with the whole situation I questioned why the frame was a different colour. The frame in isolation looks ok, gloss black and gunsmoke/blueish but I liked my old frame that was anodised grey and flat black with red highlights. More to the point, the fork, wheels, stem, bars, skewers, etc that either came with the original frame or I had updated matched the red/black theme now look a bit weird. I then noticed that the new frame has v-brake mounts which do look a bit ordinary IMO. I pointed this out to the guy and, whether he thought I was being a smart arse or not, he gave up and got someone else to talk to me. Knowing this was going nowhere and I was not going to get any form of empathy, I had a half hearted whinge to the next guy and left. Walking out of the store I wondered if I had said that my lycra doesn’t match the new frame and the v-brake mounts add 10 grams to the weight of the bike, I may have got some sympathy!!

Once I am out riding tomorrow I am sure that I won’t give two second’s thought to colours or the like. At least I am wiser about the importance of finding the right bike store because if I was treated with at least some sort of respect in this situation it wouldn’t have even mattered if the new frame was pink!!!!

If it were me, and I had a backup bike to ride in the meantime, I would've told them to take their frame with crappy looking v-brake mounts (which is surely a sign that it's an older frame model) and shove the frame in whatever orifice it's best going to fit. Then I'd be on the phone twice a day with them, and Avanti Plus or Netti (whoever deals with Scott nowadays) and be like "Where's my f**ken frame?"

And I wouldn't hesitate to name them here after all that. In fact I'd be posting it in the Scott forum for everyone to see. It's the 21st century - you can't get away with crappy customer service like that now without ramifications.